The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c7.s6.78

c7.s6.78

Of Thána an Italian traveller of the fourteenth century, quoted by Colonel Yule, had written that there were the remains of an immense city to be seen, and that there were still 5000 velvet weavers there.² It is described in much the same way when the Portuguese arrived, as a decaying town and not so much resorted to by merchants as formerly, but it was full of people who lived by the silk trade, and there were more than a thousand silk looms there. From the description it would seem that Sálsette was to some extent independent of Gujarát, as the ‘Xeque’ sent an embassy offering a tribute.³ This may, however, have been only the provincial governor. There were two forts commanding the narrow part of the creek between Bassein and Thána built by the Musalmáns, but afterwards taken by the Portuguese.⁴ About the same time Cæsar Frederick called Thána a place “very populous with Portugals Moors and Gentiles.”⁵ There can be little doubt that the gradual silting of the creek reduced its value as a port, while at the same time the increased size of the ships built made it necessary to find harbours with deeper water than Thána could ever have had, and so both causes contributed to its decay.